Tuesday, 25 November 2014

It was time to try
something from the Highland region and some way or other (without the aid of a
whisky guide) I arrived at the door of Glen Garioch. Reviews on The Whisky Exchange were
favourable, but what swung it for me was that, with the desired criteria being no age statement/under 10 years and thatI didn’t want to spend (much) more than
£30, this one was both and a
mouthwatering 48% - which turns out to be cask strength.It is likely aged between 7 and 8 years and of
course it also helps that it is non chill-filtered.

At the time of
purchase they only did this, a 12 year old and a variety of vintage bottlings
though that range has since been extended to include a 15 year old
“Renaissance” edition which is the first of a 4 part series that is intended to
chart “the fascinating progress of the spirit in the cask”. Fascinating? Over
15 years? More happens in the life of a cat over 15 years than happens in a
cask sitting in a warehouse and you’d hardly call that fascinating would you?
But you know what? I’ll go with it.

At around £75 the
Renaissance edition seems a bit pricey, though I see you can also buy the
pre-2009 15 year old edition at TWEfor just a couple of pounds more.
Interesting. For my Founder’s Reserve I paid £29.20 plus the P and the P.

In terms of
presentation, it comes in a plain brown box with a bit of tartan trim while the
bottle is pleasingly stout and sturdy.

While carrying out a little research on other
peoples opinions of this expression, I came across one that raises a curious behaviour
that, while whisky is considered to be the most complicated and perhaps
worthwhile spirit, lauded and celebrated the world over, when people detect a
note that isn’t entirely to their taste they seem to feel they have to improve
on it – like, by adding “sweetened soda” – in this particular instance (naming
no names).

I accept the stipulation that adding water
can open up a spirit, and that it is necessary with higher cask strength
bottlings (though the quantity to add is down to personal taste – I like to go
for as little as possible), but… soda?How bad is it?

You get the impression that some reviewers
treat their whisky like a puzzle; how can
I make this right? - in the same way you add seasoning to a meal. I don’t think
you’d ever get a wine enthusiast adding anything to their glass, would you? So
why don’t whisky drinkers accept and enjoy an expression for what it is more?

The only instance in which I will try to
“improve” a whisky is if I feel it’s so bad that I can’t drink it as is, and
that rarely happens because in my experience, any bad spirit can be improved simply by sticking it in your
hipflask or chugging it to get the party started… you don’t have to taste the fuck out of it. Mostly
I’m happy to explore it and if I don’t like the trip, it’s more a case of
finding a drink to use it up in.

It remains to be seen whether I’d feel
anything needed to be added to the Founder’s Reserve, so let’s get around to
seeing and open that bottle…

Since Jon had come round, who I hadn’t seen
in a couple of years, I needed to open something new, and this was it. We caned
nearly half of it that evening before I set it aside for a while to finish the
HP12 and appraise all that has to offer. See last weekfor that
particular self-indulgence.

The Founder’s Reserve has a similar taste to
the Glen Scotia 16 – a tang that due to my limited experience still
strikes me as weird. I’m thinking it is probably going to be indicative of a style since I have now found it in two
different places – Glen Scotia being a Campbeltown and Glen Garioch a Highland
malt.

In further comparison to the Scotia, the
Garioch’s flavour profile doesn’t edge so far towards the synthetic impression
that I mentioned in my earlier post. Nor is it as smoky.

Sadly, as the weeks went by I started to
enjoy this less and less, to the extent that I would prefer many a blend over
it. Consequently, at around £30 it seems overpriced when a Ballantine’s,
Grant’s and even Asda’s own brand McKendrick’s would be preferable.

I started to detect hints of lavender (a
plant I don’t think has any business being eaten (or drunk)), and also found
the extra strength (its selling point) to be ultimately unpleasant, requiring
more dilution than I would like just to soothe the unpleasant burn and leaving
you drinking an underwhelming whisky squash.

In comparison to the admittedly pricier Glen
Scotia 16, it was falling by the wayside, and even in comparison to the vast
majority of single malts in my index. In terms of price per centilitre I’ve
previously paid less for the Glanfarclas 10, Glenmorangie Original, Talisker 10
and HP12, all of which I consider vastly superior. Sadly, that can only lead us to the conculsion that you can do a lot better for £30.

Monday, 17 November 2014

If you read my
recent Canadian Adventureposts, you will already be familiar
with the story of how I came into possession of another bottle of the Highland
Park 12, a personal favourite and one that I have bought numerous times
previously as presents for friends. On this occasion, it is as a failed gift attempt that I am able to
revisit and see if another couple of years’ drinking experience has affected my
opinion. It turns out my father-in-law doesn’t like peated whiskies at all –
even this one which, being familiar with Islay’s heavily peated fare, I
consider to be mild.

Highland Park is
still one of the coolest bottles around, with it’s chunky shape and oversized
cork – not classy in a traditional sense exactly, just invitingly robust (just
how I like my women…), treading that fine line between modern and classy with
consummate ease.

I can’t help noticing
the peaty aroma that escapes from the bottle on opening every time, but in the
glass, the smoky nose is more subdued, and you forget there’s any peat in there
at all. On first tasting, I’m thinking it’s not exactly a fine spirit, but it is so
damn tasty. The body is a little light, but the profile is all class.

On first taste this
time around, I was actually worried for a moment that Jim Murray was right in
his 2013 Whisky Bible about the HP12 losing some of its quality, but I
remembered I hadn’t appreciated my first bottle to its full extent immediately,
and resolved to reserve final judgement
until a full appraisal could take place.

He doesn’t
specifically say what’s wrong with this bottling, but puts it down to the cask
and hopes it’s an anomaly. Consequently he scores it a mere 78. I have to say, I
do believe I may have detected the slightest hint of a bum note in there, that
it would seem was a logical effect of a cask issue, but even this note appeared
only fleetingly and was quickly eclipsed by the mouthwatering flavours that are
evident elsewhere within the spirit. So even with what I am going to accept as
a possible slight flaw, HP12 is still significantly
tastier than many a malt - especially at this price point.

I thought for a
while that I might be loath to buy this as a gift until I could be certain the
high standard was restored (or unless I needed to buy a gift, but couldn’t
afford anything else at that particular time…), but as a dram for evening
enjoyment, it clearly still has a lot to give.

By the end of my
second tasting, I was convinced I’d been right all along, but to confuse matters
further, other tastings proceeded to prove disconcerting; it isn’t quite right, is it? I thought, Or is it?

One night after band
practice (and a beer), I settled in for another glass, and the flavours were delightful as they were dallying around
on my tongue. I picked up a bit of bacon on the nose, along with the usual
vanilla tones, and the spirit itself was soft, sweet and light. Probably the
most I’d enjoyed a dram in many a week.

What is going on with this bottle?

I wondered maybe if
this was a whisky to drink late at night (it was almost 11 when I poured it)
but then, I usually drink it later
on, having prepared myself with a blend first. Maybe that’s what I’m doing
wrong, maybe it follows pilsner best…

Reviews on forpeatsake.com
have alluded to the way the whisky can taste different from one day to the
next. This is something I’ve noticed before but, perhaps this time, that effect
is more pronounced than previously noted. Many of those reviews mention that
this bottle has become a trusty backup, one to keep in the cabinet at all
times, and I think that tendency to
transform further supports that practice.

So far I’ve found my
second bottle of this more puzzling than the first though, by turns, no less
satisfying or intriguing. It seems to me now, that if I don’t get another
bottle in and on the go soon after this one, the whole quandary could begin
over again – so why not keep it on standby and enjoy the rollercoaster
consistently, repeatedly, in perpetuity…?

It is that good. And
because of that, I am elevating this malt from where it stood at number 6 in my
all time single malt rankings to number 2, behind only Caol Ila 12 and ahead of
such luminaries as Ardbeg 10, Bladnoch 10 and Caol Ila Distiller’s Edition
2012. High praise indeed. I want another glass tonight, but it’s Thursday… sadly
not a drinking night. Ah, but tomorrow…

Tuesday, 11 November 2014

Brandy! It’s not as
good as whisky is it? It’s not. It’s nice and all, and probably easier on the
palate, but that’s why it comes up short when you compare it with a nice
whisky. I do like it though, and its status as a must-have spirit in my house
remains unthreatened with a view perhaps to one day finding a great one. Is
there such thing as a great one? And more importantly, can you get a great one
at an affordable price (as you can with wihsky)? That’s what I’m asking this
week as I look at a low cost Cognac, Martell VS.

"fine" cognac? Or simply "all right" cognac?

At least, that was
the plan as, when I looked at my notes I found I’d made very few. When I cast
my mind back and tried to pull impressions from my memory… I hardly remembered
drinking this bottle at all. What happened? It’s like some aliens have stolen
three months of my life. I can’t remember a single specific instance of
drinking it – how did I get through a whole bottle without it leaving a single
impression one way or the other?

I do know that there
were some pounds off this one (six), making it an overdraft friendly £25. I
ruminated at the time that you can’t get a great single malt scotch for £25 as a rule, but that from time to time
you can – I’ve picked up the Highland Park 12, Talisker 10 and Glenmorangie 10
at this price point before, so I had been hoping to draw some conclusions as to
how this measured up.

Based on previous
experience, my expectations were fairly low. Cognac is generally known to be
expensive and the ones at the cheaper end of the spectrum thought to be poor –
as borne out by the Courvoisier VSOP I bought some time ago, also for £25.

So what else do we
know? I remember that the bottle was uninteresting aesthetically, that it was
40% ABV and that I had found from research that it is thought to be aged for
between 5 and 7 years. So far, so particularly dull. I did read some good
comments from user reviews online but clearly they didn’t inspire any
particular impressions from me. Finally, in my simple “like?” column on my
geeky spreadsheet, I have entered “yes”. That doesn’t really mean much where
brandy is concerned as it’s all kind of all right, isn’t it?

So there you go. I
hope you weren’t hoping for some in depth insight. I could make some up, but it
wouldn’t be fair either to you or the product. And in the end, I think the lack
of an impression it made tells its own story. Drinking the Martell VS has
ultimately turned out to be the liquid equivalent of getting home drunk and
watching your favourite TV show on the TV recorder, then deleting it… then
waking up the next day, thinking “ooh,
I’ve got that show to watch… where is it?” You’ve already watched and
deleted it. It’s like that.

How is that supposed
to help you? Well, if you’re going to buy it, don’t expect much.

Definitions

What happens when you zone out after having had a cheeky lunchtime pint.

Alcothusiast:

Not an alcoholic, someone who appreciates booze.

Anxiety, The:

The uneasy feeling that accompanies any noteworthy hangover.

Booze Buffet Mentality:

The propensity people have to go nuts whenever there's a free bar.

Booze Porn:Photos of alcohol.

Bread Chest:Not booze related, but this term describes the indigestion you get from eating too many bread products too quickly. Just putting it out there...

Crawler's Block:The inability to decide where to go next during a pub crawl - often resulting in crawl stagnation and someone saying, "shall we just have another one here?"

Crawl Stagnation:The result of failing to plan a pub crawl sufficiently - lack of a route, theme or over-familiarity with nearby pubs can all be contributing factors.

Excess Induced Alcohol Aversion:An intolerance for a drink caused (usually) by one occasion of overindulgence.

The Family:My whisky collection.

MOMA:

Moment of Maximum Appreciation. Every bottle has one. It's the time you drink it where you enjoy it most.

Old Man Pub:Traditional British pub, renowned for being quiet, cosy and frequented by old men. Much favoured by people who like a nice chat while they drink.Psychological Drinks Cabinet:Collective term relating to the kinds of alcoholic drinks a person has need for.Road Beers:

Cans of beer that you take with you when you go out, to consume on the way.

The 3 Types of Rum:White, gold and dark. Together they form the base of many a great cocktail.

About Me

Neil Cake is interested in all types of booze, but is by no means an authority or expert. Most of the time he's just trying to be funny, but he is learning, and enjoys sharing his adventures and what he learns on the Drink it How You Like it blog.
Thengyuverrymuuuuuch.